


deafening silence (but you make it bearable)

by Stars_dreaming (orphan_account)



Series: 88 MCU drabbles and oneshots [62]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Coffee Shops, F/M, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Late at Night, Professors, The Author Regrets Everything
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 13:45:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18661597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Stars_dreaming
Summary: Setting up a coffee shop while she's in New York might not have been the best idea, but Y/N gets to make a new family with it, and she's willing to battle monsters to keep it.





	deafening silence (but you make it bearable)

**Author's Note:**

> Just the slight coffee shop AU literally nobody asked for that I wrote during 10.30 and 11.15 pm while most of the world is asleep. And now it's almost midnight and I feel guilty for staying up to write this.

Some days, Y/N thinks she can't get out of bed. The silence is deafening and pressing on her and she pushes the tears back and curls up into a ball and prays that it'll be over soon. 

She has a job now. It's weird, because four years ago she thought she wasn't going to make it out alive after her parents kicked her out because they thought she was a lesbian. (She's bisexual, but to them it's all and the same)

She hasn't talked to them ever since - could have something to do with the fact that she went from LA to New York City, where the night life bustles and she feels free and alive. 

The only family members she occasionally speaks are her uncle Nicholas and her half-brother Clemence. Clemence doesn't have any trouble at all with her sexuality and her uncle is bisexual like her. He's the one who provided her with a bedroom and a steady income in his flower shop in DC. 

She served for two years as soon as she turned eighteen but returned back to DC after a bomb exploded and her entire team died. (She discovered later that she had become partly deaf)

Nicholas didn't love her any less for it and simply took his time with her and coaxed her out of her shell. 

Now she's studying for her master’s degree in psychology at the State University of New York _and_ she's set up a coffee shop close to the Universities and campuses. 

 

But it can get too hard for her to handle. Sometimes she hears a sound - like a glass breaking or something falling to the ground - and she just ducks and holds her breath and she has to count to ten and convince herself that it's okay and that's she not there anymore and that she's safe now.

She has friends - Sam Wilson is one of them. He studied something akin to Psychology and is a professor now. He works at the VA too, recommended it for her, but she's gotten enough of the governments bullshit and she knows she's damn lucky to be born in a rich family where at least two members take pity on her and deposit thousands of dollars on her bank account every six months. 

And Sam is a vet himself. He lost his best friend in Afghanistan and so he knows how she feels. She doesn't talk to him that much, but she can keep up with him. 

And then she has Wanda, a girl who is getting a degree in Communications. The girl has a heart of gold and always knows what to say, even though she's a bit shy. 

So yeah. Life is good for Y/N, even though she still has nightmares and she has at least one breakdown a month.

 

* * *

 

A few months pass and her shop is thriving and maybe she can stay here for a while and make some money and meet new people.

 

The reason it's thriving is because she keeps it open at night. By now, she's got two people who are permanent staff: Maria Hill and Macy Summers. They're both older than her but they're nice and they respect her. 

She can't sleep most nights anyway so instead she stands in her kitchen and she knits the dough for her cookies and she wonders if she can make a new drink to put on the menu. 

 

* * *

 

The first person to come past one am is a whirlwind of dark hair and bags under the eyes and she almost drops her plate with cookies because she recognizes that face. 

Tony Stark is in my shop, she thinks, pleasantly surprised. 

She decides not to say anything about it and simply watches him slump in a booth. 

Minutes later, she sets down a cup of coffee for him, with cream by the side and sugar in a smaller cup. She also gives him two cookies that are fresh out of the oven. He mumbles a thank you and she leaves him alone. 

 

He shows up the next night and the night after that, and Y/N wonders why he chose her shop to stay in. She doesn't mind, though, and she lets him stay and drink his coffee quietly while she comforts a few students who are crying over the stress their exams are causing.

 

One day he comes in and he takes one look at her and he bursts into tears. 

She quickly moves around the counter and wraps her arms around him and shushes him - tells him it's going to be okay and that he's alright and he's safe. 

 

He becomes a part of her family - which only consists of her and her birds anyways.

 

* * *

 

She doesn't have that many regulars at night, but now that Tony's here, a certain blond Adonis shows up sometimes, trailing behind the famous genius. 

She smiles at him the first night and asks him how he would like his coffee. He politely requests tea and she laughs and gives him his tea even though it's a coffee shop. 

 

"I'm Steve," he says after a few nights and she nods. "Y/N," she says, and then she takes her cookies out of the oven and remains focused on stacking them away. 

 

Steve likes her cookies a lot, and she notices that he and Tony hold hands under their table sometimes, but she doesn't mention it. 

He draws, too.

 

One night he walks up to her and gives her a drawing of herself behind the counter, cleaning. 

She blushes and thanks him, stumbling over the words, but he's seen the hearing aids in her ears, and he nods and signs for her. 

She's honestly gobsmacked and later she learns from Tony that he learned it for her because Tony told him that she was like family and Steve wanted to a part of that family too. 

She cries. 

 

* * *

 

So her family grows as time passes. 

Sam comes and takes his boyfriend with him - a chagrined looking man who has a prosthetic arm that was made by Stark Industries. 

Tony bonds with him on the spot and Y/N guesses that after that she has two new regulars at night. 

 

One night it becomes a little too much for her and someone lights something up inside and she's standing in the middle of the shop and she falls to the ground and clasps her hands over her ears, sobbing. 

Sam's boyfriend Bucky rushes to her side and eases her into a booth and talks to her in low hushes tones - it doesn't matter that she can't hear what he's saying - and he smiles, and he holds her hand and Sam signs that she's going to be okay. 

 

It appears that they're all just a bunch of vets. Well, Tony isn't, but he's had his fair share of kidnapping and torture in Afghanistan, so Y/N thinks that counts too. 

"A family with PTSD," she jokes one night, and she's glad everybody can laugh about it. 

 

* * *

 

She learns about Riley when Sam comes in one night, voice thick with emotion as he explains its Riley's birthday. To console him, Y/N gives him cookies and extra coffee. 

Bucky shows up and wraps Sam in his arms and Y/N smiles as she looks around because it feels like home. 

 

* * *

 

She's almost done with her degree when one night, Wanda stumbles in with another boy with silver-white hair. They're supporting a crying boy. 

They stumble into a booth and speak on hushed tones with each other until Y/N brings them all hot chocolate with a lot of whipped cream. 

The boy's name is Peter, and he hasn't slept for eighteen hours. 

Y/N tells him sternly that he needs to eat, and drink and sleep and he begins crying again. 

 

Later, she finds out he's an orphan and her heart breaks a little for him. 

Her parents might have kicked her out, but hey, at least she still has a family. Peter doesn't have anyone. 

But Wanda and Pietro are orphans too, and those three seem to get along just fine, so for the time being, Y/N just welcomes them into her family with open arms. 

 

* * *

 

Her shop gets a visit from a Colonel, Tony's best friend James Rhodes, and she just gapes at him. 

He knows ASL, apparently, and asks her for a latte.

She gives him her famous cookies too. Tony winks at her and snuggles into Steve's side while Rhodes launches off into a story about the army and the Pentagon. 

She knows exactly what he's talking about, but she wills herself not to listen or chime in because she has enough shit to worry about. 

 

Rhodes becomes Rhodey when she has one of her breakdowns and tells him about the bomb and her loss of hearing. 

It's not that he becomes a part of  _her_ family; it's more like she becomes a part of  _his._

 

* * *

 

One night, two people walk in. They have a service dog with them, and Y/N recognizes the colour of its blanket/jacket? all too well since she walked around with one after her service. 

They don't speak, but Y/N hands them mugs with coffee and cups with cream and sugar anyways. 

She even gives them a plate full of cookies. 

The man gives her a sweet, charming smile, which she returns with a wink. 

 

The redhaired woman is Natasha, someone who Y/N figures has a lot more red on her ledger than she lets on, and the man with the charming smile is Clint. He's a professor and teaches ASL. Natasha doesn't say what her job is, and Y/N doesn't ask. 

 

(She later learns its dance)

 

* * *

 

And now she's got a small family with eleven members if she includes herself (which she does).

It's a weird mix. 

Former soldiers, still a Colonel, a dancer, professors and students.

Y/N loves it.

 

* * *

 

She and Clint bond over being deaf and Natasha smirks when she sees them close together one day. 

Clint is perched on the counter and leaning in and Y/N is looking up at him, but quickly darts away when more customers come in. 

 

Maria brings her girlfriend Pepper over for the holidays and Y/N arranges a day for them in the coffee shop. 

Now they're with fourteen because Bucky brought his sister and her family is growing and growing and Y/N can only smile as she sits next to Clint and his hand is on her thigh.

He presses a kiss on her temple. 

 

* * *

 

"I like this," she tells him later, when they're alone in her living room. "I really like it." 

And he laughs and she laughs, and she can't wait to open her coffee shop again the next day. 

 

Nicholas comes by a few times to ask her what she's doing with her degree, to which Y/N just responds that she's helping her new family with it. 

He's happy for her, she can see it in his eyes, and she feels happy too, so she hugs him and thanks him for everything he did for her.

 

* * *

 

For her birthday, Nicholas flies Clemence over, and her family grows by one. 

Everyone accepts him and welcomes him, and Y/N is so grateful that she cries in the baking room. 

 

Clint comes in to get her and as soon as he sees her tears he hurries over to hug her. 

 **What's wrong?** he signs. 

She sighs against his lips. 

 **I'm happy,** she says, and she means it. 

 

And yes, there are still days when she wakes up and she wants to curl up into a ball and die, and she cries on the days her deceased friends should be celebrating their birthdays, but she also laughs with Macy in the kitchen and she dances with Natasha when it's just the two of them and she wakes up to the sight of Clint's face in the morning. 

She wouldn't trade it for the world.

 


End file.
